Marie August's Blog, page 16

Book Review: Bachelor On The Prowl by Kasey Michaels

Sprightly, sexy comedy!

Bachelor On The Prowl by Kasey Michaels

Release Date: October 15, 2012
Publisher: Silhouette Special Releases
Pages: 192 pages
Source: Purchase
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

If you are a fan of Kasey Michaels, you will be particularly delighted with this humorous sequel to Silhouette Romance #808 Lion on the Prowl. Max Rafferty, the hero of the previous book, is the cousin of Colin Rafferty, the very British hero of this book. Julia Sutherland, the heroine of Lion on the Prowl, is the best friend and business partner of Holly Hollis, the heroine of this book.

Holly finds herself totally in charge for the very first time of a huge New York fashion show, because her partner, Julia Sutherland Rafferty, a major fashion designer, insists on staying home with her sick five-month-old son. All is controlled chaos, and Holly is proud of her management, until one of the male models doesn't show up. Holly is desperate. This is a show for bridal gowns with top models, and there is no way one of the "brides" can walk out unescorted by a "groom." When the gorgeous male model finally shows at the last second, Holly ignores her strong attraction for him and orders him to drop his pants instantly and get into his tuxedo.

Colin Rafferty has just flown in from Europe and has stopped by to see the fashion show of his new cousin-in-law, Julia, when he's accosted by a stunning little dynamo asking him to strip. It doesn't occur to Colin to say "no" to a woman who fascinates him and is obviously in distress, and he complies, in the process saving the day for the fashion show of his new relative, Julia.

This cute meet sets the stage for a wild romantic ride between two attractive, sympathetic protagonists. There are many funny scenes, and many poignant ones, as well. All of the characters, including the secondary ones, are vivid; the pace is quick, and the emotional depth is great. I found the motivation for Colin's temporary masquerade as a male model well done--quite an accomplishment, since anytime deception is used as a plot device, it can be very tricky to pull off. I also thought Michaels did a very good job with the additional, delicate feat of using the characters, Julia and Max, from the previous book in the series. They very much helped the story, and never upstaged the current hero and heroine. As part of the Silhouette Romance line, this book is, of course, G-rated, with no sexual consummation and only a few heated kisses. But the sexual chemistry is such that it still remains a very exciting romance with lots of sexual tension.

Book Review: Treat Her Right by Lori Foster

Cute, sexy, romantic comedy

Treat Her Right (Harlequin Temptation) by Lori Foster

Release Date: First Published October 2001
Publisher: Harlequin Temptation
Pages: 224 pages
Source: Purchase
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

Ebony MacKenzie has a shot at leaving the rag of a weekly where she works and snagging a full-time staff position at the Cincinnati Examiner if she can secure an exclusive interview with Reuben Renfro, The Ice Cream King. Unfortunately, the assignment involves pursuing the elusive millionaire to his favorite haunt, a nudist colony. At the same time Ebony is pursuing Renfro, reporter Isaiah Malone is also offered a promotion to a full-time staff position at the Cincinnati Examiner if he can lock up an interview with Renfro. He's no more pleased with Renfro's hangout than Ebony. And when these two competitors run into each other at the Shangri-La Naturist Retreat, it becomes harder and harder to keep their sights on Renfro, instead of each other.

This book got off to a fast start and kept up a merry pace throughout. The hero and heroine are both very engaging, the romance is passionate, and the story delightfully funny. If you like romantic comedy, you'll be thrilled with this new gem to add to your collection.

Book Review: It's a Love Thang by Reon Laudat

Cute, sexy, romantic comedy

It's a Love Thang by Reon Laudat

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: September 16, 2002
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Pages: 323 pages
Source: Purchase
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

Ebony MacKenzie has a shot at leaving the rag of a weekly where she works and snagging a full-time staff position at the Cincinnati Examiner if she can secure an exclusive interview with Reuben Renfro, The Ice Cream King. Unfortunately, the assignment involves pursuing the elusive millionaire to his favorite haunt, a nudist colony. At the same time Ebony is pursuing Renfro, reporter Isaiah Malone is also offered a promotion to a full-time staff position at the Cincinnati Examiner if he can lock up an interview with Renfro. He's no more pleased with Renfro's hangout than Ebony. And when these two competitors run into each other at the Shangri-La Naturist Retreat, it becomes harder and harder to keep their sights on Renfro, instead of each other.

This book got off to a fast start and kept up a merry pace throughout. The hero and heroine are both very engaging, the romance is passionate, and the story delightfully funny. If you like romantic comedy, you'll be thrilled with this new gem to add to your collection.

Book Review: All In The Game by Barbara Boswell

A fun, sexy read!

Posted book review to website and blog -All In The Game (Man Of The Month) by Barbara Boswell All In The Game (Man Of The Month) by Barbara Boswell

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: November 1, 2002
Publisher: Silhouette
Pages: 192 pages
Source: Purchase
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

The last person in the world Ty Hale expected to encounter on a desert island was 26-year-old Shannen Cullen. Ty is a 34-year-old head cameraman on a reality game show, and Shannen and her twin sister are finalist contestants. Nine years ago Ty was a third-year law student mutually in love with Shannen, who'd told him she was a 22-year-old grad student. Much to his horror, and fortunately before the relationship had been consummated, he discovered she was an underage high school student of 17. He broke up with her harshly, not wanting to take any chance Shannen would attempt to keep them together, since he didn't believe he could resist her. Later, when she was of age, Ty wanted to look Shannen up. But by then major scandal had rocked his family, sending his father and brother to jail, and he figured she'd want nothing to do with him. Now on the island, they have a second chance at love, except....if they get involved, Shannen will be disqualified from the contest, and Ty will lose his job.

As a long-time fan of Barbara Boswell, I've read and enjoyed every book she's ever published. She writes with sympathy and flare about family relationships, and she's particularly fun when she deals with twins and triplets, a favorite theme of hers. Her stories are consistently light-hearted and uplifting, often funny, and always sexy. This book certainly displays each of those wonderful traits. As for the story line of this particular book, even if you don't like reality game shows (I confess, I don't), that won't interfere with enjoying All in the Game. It serves as a quite interesting and often clever backdrop for the hot relationship between the appealing hero and strong, intelligent heroine.

Boswell has a sharp, unique author voice; her writing is smooth and polished, avoiding aggravating redundancies, and she doesn't dump in endless backstory at the beginning of her books, as so many other novelists tend to do. Instead, she carefully sprinkles in pertinent information about the protagonists' pasts throughout the course of the story in a way that adds to interest and tension. In addition, I particularly appreciate her use of close, third-person point of view. By that I mean that she only uses the point of view of two people, the hero and heroine, and it is very clear at all times when she's switched point of view. This technique allows the reader to have a much deeper, more intimate relationship with the protagonists. Unfortunately, very few authors of *any* popular genre of fiction seem willing or able to write in close third, choosing instead to employ omniscient as (seemingly) a good excuse for careless head-hopping and frequent, long swatches of tell-don't-show narrative. Taking a vacation from that kind of writing makes it doubly a treat to read a consummate pro like Ms. Boswell.

Book Review: Bras & Broomsticks (Magic in Manhattan, #1) by Sarah Mlynowski

Fun, paranormal, chick-lit novel for younger teens

Bras & Broomsticks (Magic in Manhattan, #1) by Sarah Mlynowski

Reading Level: Young Adult
Release Date: February 22, 2005
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Pages: 320 pages
Source: Purchased
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

When 14-year-old Rachel Weinstein's mother announces that she and Rachel's 12-year-old sister Miri are witches, Rachel scoffs in disbelief, but a demonstration of magic by Miri soon makes Rachel a believer, and she demands to know why she isn't a witch, too. Her mother informs her that she might develop powers someday, but Rachel doesn't want to wait. She reels off a string of requests for Miri or her mother to fill, but her mother says she's a non-practicing witch and she doesn't want Miri doing any spells until she's trained Miri.

Rachel thinks her mother's concerns are unjustified and goes behind her back to nag Miri to perform magic that will improve Rachel's sagging social life. Introverted, geeky Miri has world-saving aspirations, and she is unimpressed by Rachel's frivolous desires. Fortunately for Rachel, though, Miri is insecure enough about doing spells alone that she's willing to strike a bargain. Miri will conjure up for Rachel some of the things she wants in exchange for Rachel helping Miri do the spells that are important to her. Rachel is thrilled--until she finds out the hard way that none of Miri's spells turn out the way either of the girls imagined.

This G-rated, humorous, young-adult, chick-lit novel is clearly geared at girls age 9-14, but it is entertaining enough that readers of any age who appreciate zany comedy with a paranormal twist will get a kick out of this book. The main focus of this wacky, buddy story is Rachel's relationship with Miri. Though Rachel is the older sister, Miri in many ways is more mature than her. But as sober as Miri is, inevitably Rachel's enthusiasm drags Miri along with her, and the comical results of Miri's spells gone wrong makes this book extremely funny.

This story isn't simply one slapstick situation after another, however. As the story progresses, in the midst of the magical mayhem, the girls learn important (but not preachy) lessons about themselves, their parents, their friends, and what is really important in life.

Fans of this book might also enjoy Being Jamie Baker by Kelly Oram, Cloaked by Alex Flinn, and Gimme a Call by Sarah Mlynowski.

There are four books in the Magic In Manhattan series:

Bras & Broomsticks, 2005
Frogs & French Kisses, 2007
Spells & Sleeping Bags, 2008
Parties & Potions, 2010

I originally purchased this book as a trade paperback, but I recently re-read it as a Kindle ebook, which is well edited and formatted.

I rate this book as follows:

Heroine: 5

Subcharacters: 5

Paranormal Chick-Lit Plot: 5

Writing: 5

Overall: 5

Book Review: Much Ado About You by Eloisa James

Sisters falling in love

Much Ado About You (Essex Sisters #1) by Eloisa James

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: December 28, 2004
Publisher: Avon
Pages: 400 pages
Source: Library
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

I'm a huge fan of romantic comedy, and this book is one of the best I've ever read. The basic plot sounds simple, but James's execution is magical: Four sisters, aged 24, 22, 20 and 15, are orphaned when their father, a horse-mad Scottish lord, is flung from one of his horses. Tess, the eldest, has been mother as well as sister to her siblings since their mother died when the youngest was a baby. Tess is greatly worried when she discovers their feckless father has left them to the guardianship of a British duke none of them has ever met. But though 35-year-old Rafe, the Duke of Holbrook, drinks far too much, he is extremely kind, treating the sisters like family. It is obvious to Tess and her two sisters next in line, Annabel and Imogen, that they must marry since they have no money to support themselves and they don't want to take advantage of the duke. But since the only dowry their father left them is one race horse each that cannot be sold, they are afraid only undesirable men as horse-mad as their father will be likely to seek their hands. Fortunately, the sisters are all beautiful, and the duke decides he will have little trouble finding them husbands. In fact, one of his two thirty-something best friends, the Earl of Mayne, immediately volunteers to marry Tess in pursuit of a comfortable marriage of convenience. The only thing standing in the way is the duke's other best friend, the fabulously wealthy and extremely enigmatic Lucius Felton. Before meeting Tess, Lucius had no plans to marry, and he is dismayed to find himself far more interested in Tess than any man who cares about either comfort or convenience ought to be.

The heroine and hero, Tess and Lucius, are a great match. They are both intelligent, with a sense of humor, bone-deep integrity, and an enormous capacity for love and loyalty. Because of internal wounds they each bear, the vulnerability they experience as their relationship develops makes the love scenes not only very sexy (and they are hot!) but extremely touching. There are multiple subcharacters, every one of them adding an important element to the book, but the major ones, the tipsy duke, Rafe, and Tess's sisters, are particularly well done. Tess's relationship with each character is important to her story, and the main subplot of her sister Imogen's desperate love for an engaged man contrasts with Tess's relationship with Lucius in a particularly powerful way. I am looking forward with great anticipation to the upcoming three books about the other sisters. I'm especially hoping Rafe will recover from his alcoholism and become a worthy mate for one of the three sisters, because he's simply adorable.

 
 

Book Review: A Field Guide for Heartbreakers by Kristen Tracy

A wild romp of young-adult chick lit

A Field Guide for Heartbreakers by Kristen Tracy

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: June 1, 2010
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Pages: 352 pages
Source: Library
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

Seventeen-year-old Dessy Gherkin is a straight-A student from small-town Ohio who receives the chance of a lifetime due to the intervention of her adventurous, long-time best friend, Veronica Knox. Without Dessy's knowledge, Veronica submits a humorous essay the two of them wrote together to a prestigious writing program which will be held in Prague the summer before their senior year. Amazingly, they are both accepted and assigned to the fiction workshop led by Veronica's mother, a famous literary novelist. They are the only two high school students among dozens of college students attending the writing program.

Dessy had been moping the entire month prior to the trip to Prague, because her boyfriend and fellow geek, Hamilton Stacks, dumped her, giving the excuse that he was heading to university and didn't want to maintain a long-distance relationship. Bouncy, bossy Veronica is determined to take Dessy's mind off Hamilton, whom Dessy persists in believing will eventually come back to her, in spite of glaring evidence to the contrary. Veronica insists that the cure for Dessy's Hamilton fixation is to get interested in other guys, and Prague is just the place to do it. Rather than taking the writing workshop seriously, Veronica is determined to spend her time hunting down "hot-dudes," and drags the reluctant Veronica along with her.

This is a hilarious buddy story with the classic chick-lit theme of dating disasters. Dessy is the "straight man" of this sprightly pairing, playing the part of the stooge and comic foil, who is constantly shocked, awed, or physically bowled over by the wild and crazy antics of willful Veronica.

Veronica's continual volley of her personal impressions of the people around her, her endless plots for for the greater glory of her life and Dessy's, and her occasional startlingly accurate insights fuel this book from start to finish. Beneath all the comedy, though, there is a strong coming-of-age throughline. Dessy begins this story emotionally dependent on the important people in her life, to the extent that, in every area outside her studies she is a passive follower. Veronica has always taken advantage of that, because she loves to lead, and she starts out the book dragging Dessy behind her everywhere she goes. Over the course of this fast-paced, witty novel, though, both girls learn to moderate the extremes they've been living, and their relationship survives and prospers because they both share the important virtue of loyalty to and support for each other.

As someone who has attended many literary-fiction workshops while in grad school, I personally thought the author does a dead-on send-up of the unconsciously comic, self-involved pretentiousness of the participants of such workshops. The author also does a great job with her unusual setting, bringing Prague alive for her audience without ever sliding into boring travelogue.

Fans of Beauty Queens by Libba Bray, Gimme a Call by Sarah Mlynowski, the Demon Princess series by Michelle Rowen, and the Magic In Manhattan series by Sarah Mlynowski will especially enjoy this book.

I read this as a Kindle edition. It is well-formatted and edited.

I rate this book as follows:

Heroine: 4

Subcharacters: 4

Chick-Lit Plot: 5

Setting: 5

Writing: 5

Overall: 4.5 stars rounded to 5 stars

 
 

Book Review: Burning Lamp (Dreamlight Trilogy #2 - Arcane Society) by Amanda Quick

An exciting addition to the Arcane Society and Dreamlight Series

Burning Lamp: Book Two in the Dreamlight Trilogy (Arcane Society) by Amanda Quick

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: April 20, 2010
Publisher: Jove
Pages: 355 pages
Source: Library
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

This historical, paranormal romance is part of two different Jayne Ann Krentz series. The first is the Arcane Society. The second is the Dreamlight Trilogy. She has written books for both of these series under her own name and her two pseudonyms, Amanda Quick and Jayne Castle. Even though this is the second book of a trilogy, The Burning Lamp is very accessible for those who choose to read it as a standalone book.

TBL is set in London in the late-Victorian era. Its core story is a classic "Beauty and the Beast" romance, and the book itself could easily have been titled, "The Crime Lord and the Reformer." The story is told primarily from the point of view of the two romantic leads, twenty-eight-year-old Adelaide Pyne and thirty-six-year-old Griffin Winters, with occasional forays into the heads of important subcharacters and the two main villains.

Adelaide is known only as The Widow to the teenage girls she has rescued from a life of forced prostitution. Adelaide offers these girls refuge at an academy she funds from her personal fortune where they receive vocational training so they can support themselves and remake their lives. None of the people who run the academy and none of the girls she has rescued have ever seen Adelaide's face. She covers herself with a widow's veil in order to keep her identity secret from the owner of the brothels she has raided.

Like Adelaide, Griffin Winters's face has never been seen by anyone other than a handful of his closest associates. The mysterious crime lord presides over an underworld empire in London consisting of numerous business enterprises, the exact nature of which is never specified in the book. There are only a few things that we find out for sure about his criminal activities. First, there are two pursuits he refuses to engage in (and we never learn why), the opium trade and prostitution. Secondly, he doesn't enjoy using violence. The evidence for this is that his "enforcers," the muscle working for him, use bribes to acquire useful information around London, not force. And we learn from his history and actions that he never kills unless he absolutely has to.

Adelaide and Griffin both have paranormal powers. Adelaide can work "dreamlight," which allows her to both heal and harm others--up to and including killing people--using the power of the light emissions of dreams. The talent Griffin has had since his youth is the ability to cloak himself in shadows. He can choose to merely obscure his face--which is how he conceals it from the world--or make himself entirely invisible. But recently he has suddenly developed a second psychical talent, which is an extremely rare and dangerous event among those with paranormal gifts. A person with more than one talent is called a "Cerberus," and is believed to inevitably become criminally insane.

Griffin is already a criminal, but he is terrified of going insane. He would rather be dead. Griffin's lineage is far more likely to periodically produce offspring who have the potential to become a Cerberus because of the "Winters curse." An ancestor of his from several centuries ago, Nicholas Winters, was an eccentric alchemist. He created the burning lamp of the book's title in order to amplify his psychical talent and develop additional ones as well. The results of that experiment were madness and death, in spite of, or because of, the assistance of his lover. She was a woman who, like Adelaide, worked dreamlight, and she and Nicholas passed on through their lineage the curse of, every several generations, a descendant developing a second, or even a third, paranormal talent around their thirty-sixth birthday. As Griffin's new talent becomes stronger, and he experiences accompanying nightmares and hallucinations, he is positive madness is inevitable, unless he accomplishes two things. He needs to find the burning lamp, which was stolen from his family two decades before, and he needs the help of a woman who can work dreamlight. Only with her assistance in utilizing the burning lamp can Griffin hope to reverse the curse by getting rid of the new psychical talent he has developed.

In Adelaide Pyne, Griffin thinks he has found both of the things he needs. She has possessed the lamp for the past thirteen years and her dreamlight talent is as potent as Griffin's own two very strong talents. But though Adelaide agrees to help Griffin, accomplishing his goal is anything but assured. He and Adelaide have powerful, psychically talented enemies who will stop at nothing to destroy Griffin and kidnap Adelaide in order to force her to unleash the power of the lamp on their behalf.

I am a huge fan of Jayne Ann Krentz. I've read everything she's ever written, but I am particularly fond of her paranormal, romantic-suspense novels. I love her strong heroines who are fully capable of going head-to-head with her dynamic, wounded heroes. I love the sparring they engage in and the way they form a team to take down the evil villains of the story. This book has all those things in spades. I've been enjoying the Arcane Society series very much, especially the way Krentz has stretched it across generations by setting some of the books in the present, some in the past, and with her third book in this Dreamlight Trilogy, incorporating it into Harmony, her futuristic, Jayne Castle series. My favorite series of all the ones she's written is the Harmony series, so that's a two-for-one for me.

I think the characterization, plotting, action, romance, setting, paranormal elements, all are excellent in this book. And I like the way that the hero and heroine are both mysterious people who each shroud their faces. No one has ever seen them the way they can see each other, so when they lift their physical and paranormal facial veils for each other, they bare their hearts and minds as well.

There is only one aspect of the book that rather bothered me. As I mentioned above, Krentz/Quick never spells out what precisely Griffin's criminal enterprises are. His work is presented as his obsession. Therefore, if we as readers don't know what that work is, we are left without vital information to understand his motivation, which arises from ethics, personal philosophy and personality. Simply having Griffin behave honorably toward the heroine and never do anything that looks remotely criminal in the book (in spite of being a "crime lord") did not satisfy me as a reader that he is truly deserving of Adelaide. I wanted to know what Griffin's crimes were, his motivation for engaging in them, and strong signs across the course of the story that he has powerfully changed from a criminal to an honest man.

Across the entire book, right up to the end, since Griffin never commits a single crime on stage in the story, and we never hear about any of his criminal activities, I frankly kept waiting to hear that he had been running a huge scam against the underworld the past twenty years. That maybe he never has committed any real crimes and that, just like his ability to be physically shrouded in shadows, his so-called evil reputation has been only an illusion. I thought he might be a kind of underworld Robin Hood, robbing from the real "crime lords" and returning the ill-gotten gains to their rightful owners. Or perhaps only preying on the powerful members of so-called legitimate society who use their privileged social position to get away with crimes without ever being seen as criminals. But, no, that is not the case.

If this were not a romance novel, and in particular, A Krentz romance novel, I might not have a problem with any of that, since the foreground of the story is very compelling and I did enjoy the relationship between the "crime lord and the reformer." But this is the first time in all the years I've been reading Krentz that, to my recollection, she's failed to do one of several things for a "dark and dangerous" (D&D) hero: (a) Mr. D&D turns out to be a truly noble guy suffering from an unearned bad reputation; (b) Mr. D&D has a noble motivation for the dark things he's done; (c) Mr. D&D was pulled into dark activities in his naïve youth and has since repented of his past actions and is currently a stand-up guy. In this book, the hero is smack in the middle of his dark, anti-hero lifestyle as the book starts.

An additional wrinkle in my problem with Griffin's unmentioned crimes is this: Adelaide has an out-of-character lack of curiosity about them. She has no problem confronting him about everything else. Why would she not ask him, as she grows closer to him physically, psychically, and emotionally: What do you do for a living as a crime lord? Do you kidnap people for ransom? Do you run guns? Do you rob banks? Do you manipulate the stock market? Do you run crooked gambling dens? Do you commit blackmail? Do you embezzle? What are your crimes?

Because of that problem, I lowered the book from 5 to 4 stars. I didn't lower the score any further than that because all the other elements were so well done.

 
 

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Book Review: Five Little Peppers Midway by Margaret Sidney

Review of the Project Gutenberg Free eBook Edition of this nineteenth-century children's classic

Five Little Peppers Midway by Margaret Sidney

Reading Level: Young Adult
Release Date: 1890
Pages: 227
Source: Purchase
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

This is Book 2 in the Five Little Peppers series of nineteenth century children's books. Book 1 is Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.

I was delighted to discover I could instantly download to my Kindle what I presume is the Project Gutenberg free version of this children's classic. The formatting is not the most presentable I've ever seen in an ebook, mostly due to missing tabs and hard returns that are crucial for distinguishing paragraphs from each other. Fortunately, though, there are few typos, so the this version of the book is readable enough that I donated my paper copy to the library as I am gradually moving almost entirely to ebooks since I got my Kindle a year and a half ago.

This book contains more adventures of the Pepper family of five children and their widowed mother, whom they call "Mamsie." We are told it is five years after Book 1, however, given the fact that Phronsie is only eight, in reality it is more like four years later. Mrs. Pepper has been working in these intervening years as housekeeper to rich Mr. King, whom we met in Book 1. He has adopted the Peppers informally and the five Pepper children call him "Grandpapa." The Peppers have been living in the King family's Boston mansion in wealth and splendor, but the high life has not spoiled them.

Polly has been taking piano lessons, and because she practices constantly and is passionate about her music, she has become quite proficient. Even though this is an era in which upperclass women did not work, presumably because Polly was not born upperclass, and her mother works at a job, Polly's goal is to have a job when she grows up, too. She very much wants to be a piano teacher.

In spite of her humble beginnings and life goals, Polly has plenty of society girlfriends. Many of them are arrogant and condescending to the rest of the world, but they are good to Polly because they adore her. Mainly because she is creative in many ways. She is great at coming up with stories, plays, making costumes, and generally keeping everyone--no matter the age or background--fully entertained. In addition, she is a born peacemaker and is generally accepted as the leader of any group of peers she is part of, and often even of adults, who frequently come to her for assistance. Mamsie has trained all her children to work hard and do their duty with good cheer, but Polly and Ben have been the most fertile ground for her teachings. Polly passes on these teachings to anyone who comes into her sphere.

Though the story reads like an historical novel to modern readers, it was actually a contemporary novel when it was written in 1890. There are horse-drawn carriages instead of cars, gaslight instead of electric lamps, no running water, no refrigeration, and no central heating.

The Peppers frequently recall fondly their "little brown house," which still belongs to them and is maintained by Mr. King, who hires Badgertown locals to care for it. During this book, "Grandpapa" takes all the Peppers, Jasper, his daughter Marian and her three boys, Percy, Van and Dick (who is a year older than Phronsie) to visit the little brown house (it is never spelled out, but I assume Badgertown is in Connecticut). There are many other adventures as well, including burglars, a snooty visiting relative of Mr. King's who sneers at the Peppers, and Phronsie, the adored pet of the whole family still, getting lost again (as she did in Book 1, but in a different manner). Mostly, though, this is a book that provides the reader with quiet enjoyment of the ambiance of the nineteenth century and the warmth of the Pepper family.

As the title of the book states, all five Pepper siblings appear in this story:

Ben (Ebenezer) is very likely 16 since Phronsie is eight. Ben, like Polly, doesn't want to be beholden to generous Mr. King, who would gladly send Ben to boarding school as he does the younger boys. Instead of going to school, though, Ben is already working at a job at some kind of business firm. (It is unclear, because no backstory about the intervening years since Book 1 is provided, if poor Ben at least had a tutor.) The owner predicts to Ben that he will advance into a comfortable, lifetime position--though not, the man says rather condescendingly, in management because Ben is a steady plodder, not an innovator or leader. He is instead hard-working and reliable, just as he was as a child. In addition, Ben remains utterly loyal to and affectionate toward his family, especially Polly.

Polly (Mary) is now presumably 15 years old since Phronsie is eight and she is seven years older than her sister. However, since Polly has her fifteenth birthday during Five Little Peppers Abroad, she is apparently 14 going on 15 in this book. Polly and Ben have much less need to act as second parents to their younger siblings than they did when living in poverty during the events of Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. Polly doesn't have to cook and clean and babysit anymore. She studies with a tutor, practices her piano, and spends pleasant time with her friends and family. She is less the major player of this book than she was in the first book. The story's focus is spread over the whole family.

Joel would be 13 based on the ages of the other children. He has the same passionate, impulsive, choleric disposition he did as a child, which means it continues to be difficult for him to maintain the uncomplaining, sacrificial attitude Mamsie has worked hard to instill in her children. That approach to life comes with no effort to Ben and David, very little effort for Phronsie, moderate effort for Polly, and huge effort for Joel, who wants what he wants this instant. Joel continues to loudly express his disappointment if he doesn't get his needs met. In short, he's a normal, boisterous boy in a family where the norm is to be a docile gentleman. Fortunately for excitement in the story, Joel's passion puts the house in an uproar from time to time, in no small part because his two housemates Percy and Van (who are around 14 and 12 respectively) delight in tormenting him. Fortunately for Mamsie's hopes for Joel, he has a warm heart and, as in Book 1 when he was a young boy, he continues to be readily brought into line with a judicious application of maternal or sisterly guilt. As stated above, he and Davie (as well as Percy and Van) go to boarding school and come home for visits during school breaks.

Davie (David) is now presumably 11 years old. He continues to have a mild disposition and remains in Joel's shadow as a person and as a character in this book.

Phronsie (Sophronia) was four at the time of the last book and, as stated above, is described as being only eight in this book. Though she is indulged by everyone as both the adored baby of the family and because she is an angelically beautiful, blond child, she still has a remarkably unspoiled disposition, and her generosity and kindness instantly inspires worship in every man, woman, child, dog and crotchety old lady who meets her.

Jappy (Jasper) King is now presumably 17 (a year older than Ben). He is not at a university, though he is presented in Book 1 and this book as intelligent and well read (and we learn in the next book that he speaks multiple languages). During this book, Jasper doesn't have a job yet, and he is not longer under a tutor. He and his father, "old" Mr. King, mostly hang around the mansion living a life of leisure. It is never fully spelled out in this book, but my presumption is that Mr. King, who is a very arrogant, demanding man, doesn't want Jasper to go away from home, not to boarding school as the other boys do (and which was common for the upperclass then--and often these days, too), or to university, which Jasper is certainly old enough to attend. Davie is only 17 in Five Little Peppers Grown Up and he attends university with Joel. As a matter of fact, I am quite amazed, given how possessive Mr. King is of Jasper, that the old man actually allows Jasper to get a job in Connecticut as an adult of 22 in Five Little Peppers Grown Up. However, in that book Mr. King does continue to demand absolute obedience at all times from Jasper--something that Polly encourages Jasper to go along with as his filial duty.

Speaking of Mr. King, his source of wealth isn't mentioned in this book any more than in Book 1, but we learn in Five Little Peppers Grown Up that he inherited his wealth and has never worked a day in his life. It may strike a modern reader as odd that Mr. King is referred to constantly in Book 1 and this book as "old." It certainly made me curious enough about his age to try and calculate what it might be. In Book 1, Jasper's sister and only sibling is obviously much older than he is, since her oldest child is 10. Assuming she didn't get married any younger than 18, she would be around 29 to 31 in Book 1, and at that time Jasper is 13. Mr. King is unlikely to have had her earlier than age 20, and more likely he would have been at least 23 or 24. This means that in Book 1 he is between 49 and 55. He is presented as having ill health in Book 1, but since he completely perks up after Phronsie comes into his life, it is obvious he is merely suffering from the boredom of a non-productive life. He certainly remains quite lively and physically strong, without a hint of ill health, in this book and all of the first four books of this series (see list below), even though chronologically at least 15 years pass and he would be as much as 68 years old at the time of Five Little Peppers Grown Up.

It is possible that the author refers to him as "old" in Books 1 and 2 when he is still in his late 40's or early 50's is because to young people the age of the "five little Peppers," anyone over 25 might seem "old." Or the author might possibly have seen Mr. King as "old" herself even at that age since the average life expectancy at the turn of the twentieth century was little more than 40, and often people in their 50's in nineteenth century novels are labeled by the authors as "old."

Prince, Jasper's dog from Book 1, is missing in action here, oddly enough, but the bird, Cherry, that Jasper gave Polly in Book 1 appears several times.

Margaret Sidney was the pseudonym of successful, American children's author, Harriett Mulford Stone Lothrop, who was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1844 and died in 1924, eight years after writing the last Pepper book. She began her writing career in 1878 at age thirty-four by publishing stories about Polly and Phronsie Pepper in a Boston children's magazine. She married the magazine's editor, Daniel Lothrop, who began a publishing company and published Harriett's "Five Little Peppers" series, starting in 1881. Here is a list of the twelve Pepper books by date written, which were produced over the course of thirty-five years:

Five Little Peppers and How They Grew (1881)
Five Little Peppers Midway (1890)
Five Little Peppers Grown Up (1892)
Five Little Peppers: Phronsie Pepper (1897)
Five Little Peppers: The Stories Polly Pepper Told (1899)
Five Little Peppers: The Adventures of Joel Pepper (1900)
Five Little Peppers Abroad (1902)Five Little Peppers at School (1903)
Five Little Peppers and their Friends (1904)
Five Little Peppers: Ben Pepper (1905)
Five Little Peppers in the Little Brown House (1907)
Five Little Peppers: Our Davie Pepper (1916)

Margaret Sidney originally had no plans to write more Pepper books after the fourth book, "Phronsie Pepper", was published in 1897. She stated this firmly in her introduction to that book. However, over time the pleas of avid fans from all over the world caused her to give in and write eight more Pepper books. The events in the last eight books take place before the events of the third book in the original series of four books. If you would like to read the six main Pepper books in chronological order, rather than by publication date, this is the ideal sequence:

Five Little Peppers and How They Grew
Five Little Peppers Midway
Five Little Peppers Abroad
Five Little Peppers and their Friends
Five Little Peppers Grown Up
Five Little Peppers: Phronsie Pepper

If you read all the Pepper books, you will discover that the author did not take great care as to continuity in the later books, perhaps because so many years passed between writing these books.

The Pepper books are products of a much slower-paced era, and I personally find it relaxing to experience that approach to children's fiction while being warmly enfolded into the loving Pepper family.

This book, and all the Pepper books, are strictly G-rated, and the values they show (not tell through preaching) are very useful ones for any child to be exposed to, including loyalty, civility, kindness, consideration, keeping commitments, not betraying confidences, accepting difficult circumstances without complaint and forging through them, being organized, thinking before acting, and not taking one's anger out on others.

I highly recommend this book for all ages.